November 3:
Well it's all over. Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers, world champs for the third time in five seasons thanks to a 4-3 win over the Rays to take the World Series in 5 games. They've become the Giants of the 2020s, winning it all in 2020, 2022 and now 2024. Once again the Rays jumped out to a lead and once again they gave it back, dropping a 4-3 decision. They nearly tied it in the 9th (and perhaps could have, had a certain someone not held a runner at 3rd with one out), but Wander Franco popped out and Austin Meadows struck out against Archie Bradley. The Rays started out better against Mitchell White this time, getting 2 runs in the 3rd as Brandon Marsh singled, stole second, and scored when Walker Buehler's sac bunt was thrown away by Mike Moustakas, and then Buehler scored on a Meadows single. But perhaps that baserunning took something out of Buehler as Will Smith (the catcher) did it again, homering off him to lead off the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 2-1, and then in bottom of the 4th Moustakas made up for his error by launching a 2-run HR to make it 3-2 Dodgers. We stayed there until the 8th when Cody Bellinger doubled in a run off Jose Alvarado, and that run proved big when the Rays rallied in the 9th. After Alec Bohm grounded out, Spencer Torkelson singled, Marsh singled, pinch-hitter Seth Beer (in his first postseason at-bat) was hit by a pitch to load the bases, and Vidal Brujan singled scoring Torkelson. I was given the option to try to score Marsh but demurred with Franco and Meadows still to come. The decision backfired as outlined above, and that was that. Smith (the catcher) was unsurprisingly named Series MVP.
Up next: A post-mortem and a look at what our offseason plans are to gear up for 2025.